This flick is still a wicked knockout a decade later, a near-epic with Scorsese-level aspirations that quite often measures up to the master’s flashiest sagas, ‘GoodFellas’ and ‘Casino.’ The reason why, however, ultimately has less to do with director David O. Russell’s consummate skills, even if this was his strongest work since the startlingly funny war drama ‘Three Kings’ in ’99, concluding a superb three-picture run of vivid realism begun by ‘The Fighter’ in 2010 and extended with ‘Silver Linings Playbook’ two years later.
What makes it so compulsively watchable is the marriage of actors from the former (Christian Bale, Amy Adams) and the latter (Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence), all of whom provide master-class performances that justifiably garnered all of them Oscar noms. They disappear into their roles, conjuring electric interplay, though the shoot wasn’t easy. Russell, a well-known hothead as problematic as he is brilliant, was so abusive to Adams that Bale eventually had to get in his face to stop it. Such stories emerged from ‘Three Kings’ (he and George Clooney literally butted heads) and, notoriously, his manic failure ‘I Heart Huckabees’ (’04) the production of which, and the intense clashes with Lily Tomlin therein, would make more interesting cinema than the inconsistent jumble that surfaced. Took him years to rebound from that mess with ‘The Fighter’ — and he’s in another slump now, having lost acclaim with the challenging ‘Joy’ (’15) and seemingly lost the plot with the big-budget bomb ‘Amsterdam’ two years ago. He’s reportedly working on a ‘70s piece centered on toys and is attached to a biopic of football legend John Madden that might star Will Farrell? We shall see if he bounces back once more, or remains most remembered for movies like this one. Oh … was I supposed to say something about the soundtrack? It’s rad. Chock-a-block with classics like ‘Boogie Nights’ before it.
#SoundtrackSunday 018
‘American Hustle’
Sony Legacy, 2013; limited RSD pressing, 2014
d: David O. Russell